The Unfinished Story of Our Right to Vote: Part One 

Civil Rights Policy Brief #220 | By: Rod Maggay | October 12, 2024

Featured Photo by: time.com

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This is the first in a series examining the Right To Vote in the United States. The first part of this series will examine the Right To Vote as derived from the United States Constitution. 

In the text of the original constitution there was no explicit right to vote granted to the people of the new country. The original document mentioned briefly in Article 1, Section 2 that Members of the new House of Representatives would be elected by electors from their state who were qualified to vote for members of the state’s own legislative chamber. But that was the extent of using the popular vote to elect national politicians. U.S. Senators were originally chosen by the state legislature of their state until it was changed to direct popuular vote in 1913 by the Seventeenth Amendment.  

The Constitutiion also allowed ordinary citizens to vote for the President. But that   was somewhat diluted as their vote elected only Electoral College electors who would vote for the presidential ticket and not a direct vote for President and Vice – President. So direct vote of national politicians was not widely used and the right to vote was controlled by each individual state that imposed their own set of qualifications. That naturally led to states excluding large classes of people – blacks, women, Indians, Chinese. The right to vote was not uniform and the qualifications to vote varied depending on what state you resided in. In the early years of the United States a person could be qualified in one state and not qualified to vote if they lived in a different state. 

The Civil War changed this state of affairs. After the war, Congress began passing constitutional amendments that limited what an individual state could do to restrict the right to vote. States still controlled the requirements needed to determine if a person was eligible to vote. However after the Civil War Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment which prohibited a state from denying a person the right to vote based on race. In 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment was passed which now made the election of Senators subject to a direct popular vote. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed barring a state from denying women the right to vote simply because of their gender. The Twenty – Fourth and Twenty – Sixth Amendment were passed in the middle of the twentieth century and they removed another restriction that states had used to limit people from voting. The Twenty – Fourth Amendment abolished the poll tax – the requirement of paying a tax or a set fee in order to be allowed to vote. And the Twenty – Sixth Amendment prohibited states from denying the right to vote to anyone over the age of eighteen. 

Analysis: The right to vote is now clearly a fundamental right that can have significant consequences for government policies depending on the turnout of the electorate. A higher turnout can mean more policies that are in line with what the majority of the citizens want. A lower turnout – whether through apathy or more worrisome, government sponsored voter suppression – can lead to the passive acceptance of unpopular and even dangerous policies. 

The Constitution is not perfect and a historical review of the amendments it has had to pass shows that states have tried to bar and prohibit numerous classes and groups of people from the ballot box. They have had a fear that maybe women, blacks and/or youths might vote for something that the establishment might not approve. The Constitution’s lack of an explicit guarantee of the right to vote for all citizens has opened the floodgates for many groups to try and sneak in laws that suppress the right to vote for some marginalized groups today. 

Passing a constitutional amendment prohibiting poll taxes as a requirement to vote was a much – needed measure because of the invidious racial history and violence in the American South. But some groups are still trying to use the tactic of a poll tax today as seen in Florida where the state is in a dispute because of it’s proposal to require ex – convicts who have served their prison sentences to pay all court fines and penalties before their right to vote is restored to them. And even though 18 year – old youths are constitutionally guaranteed the right to vote under the Twenty – Sixth Amendment, some states are using underhanded tactics to prevent college students from voting – such as denying college students the right to vote simply because they are students from out of state that might not be able to satisfy the state residency requirement. (Red leaning states try to suppress college age voters since younger voters tend to lean liberal.) These modern – day incidents demonstrate that while the constitutional voting eligibility amendments were necessary to allow and protect people in exercising their right to vote, the effort has not been enough. The right to vote in the United States needs more — an explicit constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to vote for all adults in this country regardless of what individual states may do. Until that broad constitutional guarantee is implemented the right to vote for all will not be fully realized. 

 



Engagement Resources
  • Democracy Docket – an informative history on the right to vote in the text of the U.S. Constitution. 
  • The Constitution Center – a list of the amendments to the Constitution including a list of the voter eligibility amendments that have been passed. 


This brief was compiled by Rod Maggay. If you have comments or want to add the name of your organization to this brief, please contact rodwood@email.com.

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